Making sense of Raptors’ surprising season isn’t easy

TORONTO — The tricky thing about the Toronto Raptors’ surprising success this year is the effort required to define it, to quantify it. They are third in the Eastern Conference, with a relatively soft schedule to go. Normally, that would be cause to celebrate, and the reality would present a foundation to build upon.

By now, everybody who follows the team knows the situation is far more complicated than that. There are asterisks and extenuating circumstances. Fans have been debating the merits of going all in with this team versus selling some pieces for more future assets. They should take comfort: general manager Masai Ujiri has been doing the same thing.

“You look at it: a third-place team. I think our guys have played hard. I think we do have some good young talent on the team,” Ujiri said. “On the other side, you also look at what some people call a not-so-good Eastern Conference. Tons of players are injured. How do you judge or how do you evaluate?”

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Ujiri’s solution is to give his team a larger sample size. The Raptors squeezed in a minor deal before Thursday’s trade deadline, shipping off reserve forward Austin Daye to San Antonio for reserve guard Nando De Colo. He offers some insurance should Kyle Lowry, the Raptors’ most irreplaceable player who happens to have logged the most minutes of his career, get injured.

However, the trade was mostly incidental. Despite conversations that would have seen the Raptors either add a significant piece, subtract a significant piece or potentially both, Ujiri kept the team as is.

“I’m not going to sit here and say I’m a genius and knew that [when they traded Rudy Gay in December], OK, it’s going to go this way,” Ujiri said. “You pray and hope for chemistry. I think we found it a little bit. At that point we said we were going to give these players a platform and, hey, they will dictate where we go. To be fair, we’ve also tried to live up to our part of the bargain here. They have, too. They are growing.”

Has Kyle proven that he’s a starting point guard in the NBA? I would say yes. Has he proven that he’s a top-15 starting point guard in the NBA? I would say yes

That does not mean Lowry, Terrence Ross, Jonas Valanciunas and even DeMar DeRozan, the only Raptor currently signed through 2016, are guaranteed to be Raptors for another half-decade. Ujiri said he had conversations that he could re-visit in the summer, and that does not seem like empty talk. Ujiri’s mandate is to build a long-term contender; he will have to figure out who can be part of that success sooner rather than later.

He will have to assess Lowry soonest of all, of course. The point guard will be an unrestricted free agent after this year, and was nearly traded to New York shortly after the Gay trade. By not dealing him, the Raptors open themselves up to the possibility that he will leave for no return at all, even though there does not figure to be a huge market for point guards this off-season.

Ujiri said the team met with Lowry and his agent, Andy Miller, on Wednesday. In a way, Ujiri started contract negotiations a day later.

“People are going to say [Lowry’s success is because he is in] a contract year. In my opinion, the kid has played all out. He’s given it his all,” Ujiri said. “Kyle has adjusted.

“We’ll see how he grows. Has Kyle proven that he’s a starting point guard in the NBA? I would say yes. Has he proven that he’s a top-15 starting point guard in the NBA? I would say yes.”

Those point guards tend to get paid well, although it is easy to understand why Ujiri stopped short of “top-10.” He wants more time to see what Lowry means to this team, and whether this team is worth fortifying with an excellent point guard next season. Ujiri needs to live two or three years out in the future. It makes sense that he wants two or three more months to determine how this anomaly of a season fits in with that.